Revolution in education

TED is a lively site, sometimes very annoying but once in a while is encouraging. You might feel that someone is awake out there struggling to understand why our society is so mad, and why is it so sure about its "knowledge". Well, I always felt in schools that I was TRAINED to follow conventions and my mind was somewhat TAMED. However, what makes my mind alive to this day is that I have always questioned what I have been told. There is nothing more exciting than having your own experience and chasing for your own answers...

(Since I was in my elementary school I was convinced that there was no way that the very same identical unit 1 could create a group of 2 or 3 etc it would remain the very same 1 no matter how many times we tried to calculate it. In order to make some group of units they MUST be somehow different. A 1000 solders would never be a 1000 until they would be all different and each of them would be unique. My teachers were mentally stoned when I was asking questions like that. There is no explanation in any scientific book for how sciences "think", not even B. Russel could understand the psychology of math, while not just myself but many small children do not need to become trained mathematicians or philosophers to feel that math is a very illogical, very corrupted tricky game. No way, I thought, that math could make up any foundation for "exact" sciences! There are no exact sciences ever possible.)

Closing Statement from Vera Nova

Our vast, contemporary systems force us to squeeze our feet into a pair of one-size-fits-all shoes, and our minds into conventional thinking. We do NOT TEACH young minds in schools to experience life, but we TRAIN them to serve our gigantic arftifocial systems that do not serve any real individual, but an imaginable collective prototype.

We fight for our own point of view forgetting that every creature has its own truths stemming from its unique existence, and perception of that existence. In this age of rapid communication, we can reach one another almost instantly, anywhere in the world. But for all that, we do not understand each other any better than millennia ago.

While encouraging our personal creative abilities, we still need to learn the basic principals of communicating with each other and nature. We shall learn how to be more innovative and intuitive facing the world which is new and different, in every instant. CAN OUR SCHOOLS/COLLEGES be more like sustainable peaceful communities, not factory-like institutions, but open forums engaging students in all kinds of creative thinking and mutual self support? Can a new school practice inspirational and sustainable community living, while students are inventing their own architecture, infrastructure, taking care of their own farm, sound small businesses, like bakeries, shops or theaters, right on premises?

Would this be great for a change to experience the full spectrum of better, more meaningful life in your school?

Jul 7 2012:
Hello Jan-Bernd, Before teaching grammar or mathematics something crucial must be explained to the young students. We have no real knowledge about our existence but we try to use our conventions to somehow manage with our realities. We make many illogical moves because we do not understand the nature of our existence. Our language and math as well as other sciences and social systems are based on artificial methods and limited mentality, not the exact truth about the world.
Teaching is not taming young minds to do old tricks. Teaching means letting young minds explore their nature's given intuition (if they have any of it left) and see the world on their own independently, ask daring questions and try to answer these questions themselves, even if this might take many years.

Based on my own experience I'd like to say this firmly - many children who are confused in understanding math are not at all stupid. They often have much deeper intuition than those who "catch" the math game quickly, because that conventional "logic" offered by math lays on the surface of our deceiving sight observation. For many it is easy to play on a surface.

Because we do not have any other better programs yet, I would explain to the kids that what we have to offer to them today is unfortunately far not perfect, but these methods would be very helpful to socialize in our society until something new and greater will be invented. As a very young student I so wanted to hear some encouragement! I saw many logical mistakes in math, but was scared to say a word, perhaps just like many very young, still intuitive kids.

What makes it a bit difficult to me to fully understand your idea is your definition or understanding of the '... exact truth about the world'.

Actually, this is what we haven't figured out yet and science is on the forefront in finding those answers which are no more subject of any conventions at the end of answering them.

If you consider language an artificial method and a limitation in letting young minds explore their nature's given intuition I will not argue on that, but I also do not see any other way how we could communicate with each other to share those deeper 'insights' we may have found with others.

And just like you described I have struggled in math all my way up in becoming a mechanical engineer for aerospace technology, yet I have not found any better 'language' which was able to describe nature's principles in the best possible manner.

If you have any better, any more intuitive alternative to mathematics, I will be be the first using it. If you have found any better, more intuitive way than language in which we could exchange our minds, I am willing to learn it.

To me it seems you are pointing at a some vague and blurry concepts of '... new and greater' to be invented and condemning those we have, yet not offering better methodes yourself.

Forgive me to say: That's the easy way! That's just polemic!

I agree with you that we should make our children aware of the imperfection of our 'tools', yet I do see a point in making this a foundation by itself until we, maybe..., one day... have made better ones. (to be continued ...)

The chance here is in the 'doing' in finding these better tools, than in 'complaining' that we have not found them yet.

Also I consider 'intuition' not the best advisor in finding answers for '... the truth about the world', as intuition is easily fooled in many respects.

Example: When asked the question by my physics teacher what falls faster to the ground in a vacuum, a 'feather' or a 'stone. My intuition told me 'stone'. Well, I learned two lessons...

What I also don't understand in your idea is how knowing about our imperfection will be able to help us to '... socialize in our society'. What do you mean by that? In which way would that help?

And what are those logical mistakes in math you have discovered? I would be surprised, if you would explain them logically, that a mathematician would not gree with you!
On the contrary, if you can logically proof a given concept or mathematical methode is wrong, you are welcome to share this knowledge with mathematicians. That's what science is about! This is the way to understand the world surrounding us!

I agree that scientists could do better in sharing their knowledge with those who did not choose to learn their language (mathematics), but this does not mean that this knowledge stays unshared. There are many media working on 'popular science' to make us understand what experts have found so far... It is already available!

Jul 7 2012:
The base for my thinking is what I have discovered as a very young art student while painting in my class. I articulated this much later though. A mind is blind and deaf until its inborn art, sound recording, and animation studios begin working in its private chamber. We start "drawing" and animating inner images before our first word is pronounced and our first step is made. We have to explore our nature's given primordial artistic abilities for the sake of our very life. I'm struggling in writing my notes all my life - because my thinking is too uncommon.
The natural "mechanics" of our perceptions are crucial to understand - HOW what we see GETS into our own minds?

What I noticed as a child was that I cannot see or sense a thing until I constantly COMPARE my sensations and then images, SELECT them, COMPOSE, FOCUS and FRAME them.

This is the most crucial basic process of perceiving without which I believe no living form can exist. I keep building my theory based on this "peculiar" behavior of our minds, finding more and more answers to why we must be so artistic in order just see, or hear or touch.

While we are Surviving in this unavoidable environment of Change there is no exact, or solid, or ideal event is possible, but while equipped by almost fantastic abilities to adjust to never-ending Change we become creators of our own personal realities. Even they can be very similar we have to comprehend the real truth - we cannot perceive the very same reality, cannot sense the very same events in the very same ways. I'd love to live to this day when people would finally understand that the Golden Rule must be replaced - ‘NEVER treat others as you would like to be treated yourself - unless they agree to it first - because what is good or amusing for you may be deadly damaging for others.’

Talking about our formal education - I'd love to see that the new concept of teaching is rooted in what old Greek sages established when they encouraged arguments

Jul 7 2012:
No arguments against your concept of the diversities in individual realities. There is no other way than this, as we are all subjected to our very own interpretations of the sensations the moment we are forced into this world. I am afraid this is the destiny we have to face, as our minds are chained to the matter of our bodies and therefore isolated from itself and the environment we happen to live in. We are no beeings of pure 'spirit' and the very first moment your eyes see their first image, the neurons of your visual cortex have no choice but to interpret this information towards a non existing scale. At this point this scale will come into its existence, will grow and again force you to stay within its boundaries.

If we were able to 'see' the whole spectrum of electromagnetic waves, our mind would form around it. But what will you do to change the limits we have?

To me, every one of us will stay on its very island and can only get ideas of similarities to others. Yet this does not proof these similarities or other dominating realities false.

Jul 7 2012:
The fact that we can not '... perceive the very same reality' does not bother me anymore. It made me question if 'mental illness' or 'madness' was allowed to be seen as such, but besides this you can see 'stable' pattern in the ocean of 'individuality'. With this I go and therfore consider the 'golden rule' as upgradable yet the best converging moral towards those 'stable' pattern.

The complexity of this topic is reason to me why there is no existing law for 'mental abuse', because you could never objectively proof any damage.

Jul 7 2012:
I marked your post with this thumb up! (Sorry, but I guess it is my right) Just like the way you think. I do too trust that our conventional judgements are very poor, especially when it comes to what is "normal" and what is not. I was this very "autistic" child and some of my teachers scared my already ill mother saying that I should be put in a "special" school, or other teachers told her that I was a genius, because i was solving "complicated" math tasks or theorems perfectly, however in my own way, or even in a few of my ways. (well, I did not usually do my home work and had to come up with my own versions fast, "on premises") I somehow went through and survived many poor judgments. I must admit that researching brains may somehow help us understand a little bit about this nature's remote control, see its wires and connections between these wires, but this data would never help understand the master - the mind itself. No researcher, surgeon or butcher was able to see any image or a thought in any brains. We observe our theaters and spectacles of our own minds, consciously, semi consciously and deeply subconsciously.

I do try to imaging the "structure" or geography of mind -and I come up with a very different picture compared with how people usually imagine their own minds and bodies.

Jul 7 2012:
You are guessing right in your thumb up's! :o) And I hope it became clear from my island to yours that in mine it was formed as a joke and aditionally marked with one of those little emoticons to support its intended meaning... :o) But yes, you mentioned language already.

But now I think I see you a bit better in knowing about your autistic background. I always wondered if autism is a sign by nature what a mind could be capable of, could be made accessable to ones very own awareness. if the 'wiring' was just a bit off the norm.

I assume it can feel sort of like beeing the only grown up surrounded by happy toddlers?

Just like you I didn't usually do my homework either, yet was facing also for another reason a different reality than yours... :o)

But it did not prevent me from thinking, yet I found my boundaries in doing so and sometimes sooner than I hoped or expected.

But this is my cage and I do not see any possible methode how to get arround it. The only thing I can try to do is to move the bars a little, yet I doubt that I could ever leave this cage while grounded on earth...

I voluntarily as a guinea pig for your concept if you have any, but I may end up as an even more happy toddler than before. Any suggestions?

Jul 7 2012:
What a wonderful observation - these are symbols that we cannot avoid in our human thinking. I believe that this kind of mentality has been artificially developed based on our ability to perceive. We can perceive our realities using our corporeal eyes, but only in crude approximations. I must say that our perception of sight, which creates the this often deceitful "foundation" for our judgements of all kinds, is rooted in this very unavoidable CRUDENESS of our perceptions. I'd like to suggest that this fact about the nature of our perceptions shall be introduced in schools as some of the basic knowledge about ourselves.

Jul 7 2012:
Are you looking for comment about the logical basis of math, affirmation that questioning and experience are vital parts of learning, or references for "how sciences think?"

Almost anyone will agree that questioning and experience are at the root of learning, some here would be able to discuss with you what it means for mathematics to have a logical structure, and others may be able to refer you to good sources that explain principles of scientific inquiry or reasoning.

Jul 7 2012:
Thank you for you your question! Really appreciate it. I am just taking math as an example for describing how a young mind gets corrupted by conventional thinking. We cannot get rid of conventions - our social structures and mentality are based on them - but at least we can let ourselves think beyond them, if we comprehend that our conventions are not real knowledge but its temporary substitute. We need to be encouraged to find better ways to understand the world and ourselves in it.

Jul 7 2012:
Could you give some examples of what constitutes "real knowledge", or are you saying that anything we may consider knowledge must always be suspect?

For example, do you mean something like that our senses allow us to see only three dimensions, and to consider four if we also include time, but that in modern physics many if not most people believe that there may be as many as eleven?

Or do you mean that the theories in most fields are always our best understanding in the moment based on evidence but are always subject to change as we learn more?

Or are you saying that when we learn things we are not always aware of the assumptions on which these ideas are based? For example, many declarative statements about what is true in geometry are actually true only in Euclidean geometry (which works pretty well for applications on Earth) but are not true if we use geometric assumptions called non-Euclidean that may offer a better model for understanding space?

Jul 7 2012:
Thank you for your thoughtful questions. I would suggest to try to understand the nature of our own perceptions before jumping to any conclusions about what is true or not. While the greatest of the Greek sages such as Heraclitus and Protagoras have insisted that unavoidable instant Change of the world and our extremely limited human perceptions cannot give us any objective truth, we shall encourage ourselves to start where they have left us and look for the answers for WHY we have such limited playful perceptions and cannot help but keep creating this theatrical drama that we call life.

Jul 7 2012:
What is obvious to me is that we are extremely limited in perceiving. I was never happy to accept this fact and was going nuts looking for explanations. I eventually put together two concepts based on Heraclitus' Change and Protagoras' Limitations of perceiving (that has been developed later by great I Kant) well I put these concept to work together. If we are able to sense that all conditions within and without ourselves are constantly changing we would easily believe that we cannot stop and perceive anything "as it is" even for an instant. Kantian "things-in-themselves" are everywhere. I had to understand WHY we are so limited. The first explanation that came to my mind years ago was that if we are NOT LIMITED we would melt down into everything else in this changing world as lumps of sugar in a hot cup of tea. OUR LIMITATIONS ARE OUR PROTECTIVE BOUNDARIES.

The best part is that our protective boundaries of all sorts ( we can recognize them as perceptions for example) CHANGE too,helping us adjust to our sometimes very challenging environment . Our mental boundaries may be very "conservative" aggressively resisting change for the sake of false sense of safety, but our creative nature helps us develop ourselves. I have tooo much to say...

Jul 7 2012:
Vera, do you believe, then, that the limitations in our senses or perceptions are designed rather than that we have evolved this way from the animals that are our predecessors? I don't think we have yet seen evolution select us over species or variations of our species with greater percetive capabilities.

Jul 7 2012:
I trust that we have two "sets" of perceptions. As the rest of living creatures we have our PRIMARY deeply subconscious intuitive perceptions. Though we absolutely ignore their existence they can reveal how we initially may interact with our ever-changing External environment and why our environment is not ready-to-go pictorial or auditory in the first place. Our perceptions are our natural boundaries that are to protect us as somewhat unique individual living forms. We develop our Physical sense-perceptions only through interactions between our minds and their temporary vessels -what we call "physical bodies". It is a very challenging experience because, I think, our corporeal sense-perceptions are limited to burlesque....and often very painful. Why do we as mental living forms need this physical experience is a grand question. Boost our awareness? Maybe it is some illness to get this body as a composition of billions of viruses and microbes glued to our living minds? But I am trying to answer your question - I think that we develop our artificial sort of consciousness based on what we perceive though sense-perceptions, ignoring our subconscious perceiving. We lost our natural intuition and keep playing with devices that substitute our nature's given abilities. While many animals are superior to us in sensing their environment using no cell phones, compasses, flying jets, or instantly coordinating themselves in wilderness we re completely lost in this world without our artificial tools and devices. Is it intelligence really? I think that we shall try to learn from the nature's world how to augment our intuition and subconscious PRIMARY perceptions. If we do not realize how silly our concepts often are - we would not be able to evolve at all. We will make more toys to play, going absolutely nuts over our "inventions". We have not evolved our minds, bodies or recycling mentality since the old idealist Plato. Many Thanks for your posts!

Jul 7 2012:
Before teaching grammar or mathematics something crucial must be explained to the young students. We have no real knowledge about our existence but we try to use our conventions to somehow manage with our realities. We make many illogical moves because we do not understand the nature of our existence. Our language and math as well as other sciences and social systems are based on artificial methods and limited mentality, not the exact truth about the world.
Teaching is not taming young minds to do old tricks. Teaching means letting young minds explore their nature's given intuition (if they have any of it left) and see the world on their own independently, ask daring questions and try to answer these questions themselves, even if this might take many years.

Jul 7 2012:
This is a very "crazy", very controversial subject OBE, it is attracting more and more researchers. I would not refer to this experience if I was not sure what happened to me. It took me years to understand. Unlike many people who are scared to share this experience with others because they expect others (who have no idea of what it is) call these "Stories" and people themselves, crazy, I am open for thinking with others.

If you do not trust me -- OK lets do not talk about it The main point however is that when we just dream while sleeping, our body is semi involved in dreams. People usually believe that our dreams when we sleep have physical influence, which is absolutely true.

It is a drastically different case When your body is dead - your sense-perceptions are shut completely. Some drugs can create similar effects. If you are still curious I will try to engage common logic and explain what I think it is.

Jul 7 2012:
I hope never to loose curiosity and would like to hear what you would like to share.

I don't think that our dreams are semi- or fully connected to our body at all times, mostly they are, but I also experienced the usual 'flying' dreams or dreams in which I was able to walk through walls. What was surprising to me when I woke, was the fact, that I was not surprised to have this abilities in my dream, which was my reality when I was dreaming it. This, to some degree, made me realize that our minds would be able to adjust even to the most bizarre 'realities' if we were put into them by bith.

Yet the question stays unanswered to me what could be changed in our education system to free up those hidden possibilities of our minds, if we don't even manage to keep alive the natural given curiosity we all have within us today?

If you could fill in those concepts I may be able to see if they could work or not.

Jul 8 2012:
I appreciate that you keep in mind the agenda...Before i get to this point - I LOVE your dream but more than that I absolutely admire your perception of the dream. "What was surprising to me when I woke, was the fact, that I was not surprised to have this abilities in my dream, which was my reality when I was dreaming it. This, to some degree, made me realize that our minds would be able to adjust even to the most bizarre 'realities' if we were put into them by bith." I remember this very famous American cosmonaut was able to articulate his experience in great words, saying that he was struck to realize that there were no ups and downs, lefts or rights...... and here is your vacuum feather and a hummer..... getting close to the "out of brain experience".

I think everything we've touched in our short posts is related, quite directly, to the possible revolution in our education and mentality. The more angles of observations we bring together for comparison the greater we might augment our vision. Language and grammar, sciences and math, arts and music as we explore these "subjects" in schools and in our social life are possible for us only because we have created conventional signs and special rules for them. It is about our collective "mentality" which does not really exist. Our knowledge as we articulate it is mainly about our crude approximations based on our collective experience. I hope that some day people would be able to understand that the nature's laws that govern our own perceptions are responsible for creating and conditioning what we call our physical reality with its gravitational, electromagnetic and other conditions. We do NOT discover universal laws but our internal laws within our unique realities and perceptions of these realities. A microbe would not even notice any table, its solidity or formation, or weight, it would not perceive its color or texture, or gravity that "puts" it on a floor, but a miicrobe would go through it

Jul 7 2012:
Who am I to judge about someones experience? Why shouldn't I trust you in what you experienced?
I may not be able to 'follow' you or to understand you, but this self-explanatory because I did not have this experience. It is the same with me if someone has experienced 'God'. I didn't, I don't even know if God exists, I don't belief in one, but I would not consider this a 'story'. Some may be, but most will be a very strong sensation, which just happen not to have happened to me so far. I may not consider it a 'God' experience if I had one, yet I am sure I would be able to sense the intensity of such a feeling.
So if you are willing to share, I am willing to listen.

Jul 8 2012:
I was bewildered since my early childhood by why was it impossible to fly through the wall, and why is that thing called "body" is so alien to me, heavy and clumsy. I could not make up my confidence in such experience at that age, this experience was myself, it came up within myself into my new alien environment. My earliest childhood impressions remain incomparable. When these memories occasionally emerge in brilliant light from the past, I feel as though I am awakening from the deep dull sleep that we call our 'daily routine'. Many of us call this sleep 'reality'.

The questions that children ask, come from the perspective of independent
observers. While they are still outsiders, newcomers, they have not yet become
seriously involved in pretensions of our society and its scenarios, in attempting
to fit into their limited categories. Very young children are our best teachers,
before they become victims of our social habits of thinking and acting.

As comical as those questions may seem to an adult, the essence of wonder itself
remains the most precious quality of our nature and very often this wonder can
take us to the most mysterious debts of our psychology.

Often narrowing its range and decreasing its points with age that natural wonder
leaves a mind in quite stiff condition when we get older. Sometimes we call this
stiffness a tradition, experience or even knowledge. As we grow up we hardly
distinguish those habits of thinking, from our real changing circumstances.

I'd like to repeat this again, by discovering physical laws, including Newton's and Einstein's we discover our own unique conditions within ourselves. Every living form must have a mind (while brains are not that important) because minds must perceive or in other words, Interact and protect its own unique domains through limitations. It is the most vital process of conditioning and eventually creating our internal worlds, whether they are similar or drastically different.

Jul 7 2012:
I do believe that the perception of what we call gravity is the result of the limitations of our corporeal or physical sense-perception. The connection between our temporary vessel, our body, (that I have never felt as my own, or myself) need to understood. I have this striking experience called OBE. I was able to see anything I wanted to pay attention to, even see my lifeless body laying dawn there, and the nurses and other things that would not be able to see using my corporeal very nearsighted eyes. I was pronounced dead by the doctors, but my body was revived. The sense of self consciousness was the most critically clear, and no physical boundaries, no gravitational powers. There were different kinds of communication or interactions with this non-physical environment...... I did not have any words, did not need or remember any conventions or names, but did not have any problem of knowing who i was.... This experience has convinced me in my intuitive thoughts that all our sciences are based on our corporeal sense-perceptions which are not only extremely limited but "flat" and shallow. It is striking how we learn to believe our highly deceiving perception of sight! Hume, Berkeley, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty remain to be more entertaining literature than the path to the most hidden but exciting field of our own nature.... How our sciences would be developed if we have had no perception of physical sight? Would we have the same sense of perspective? Space? Time" I do not think so.
I see tremendous possibilities in the future if we would just try to see our realities as our own production though based upon our invisible and deeply subconscious interactions with external change of the world.
I started one of my notes " there are no trees, stars or water out there...."

Jul 7 2012:
Your questions are great and right to the point and I understand why you do not believe that I, myself, can offer something alternative, beside suggesting to train teachers be aware that they are not absolute authorities in bringing "the truth about the world' .

You make me very happy letting me know that your wondering mind is already tuned for discovering something alternative to what we "know". I will need a few minutes to get ready to describe, in a clumsy way, what I am working on for decades, since i became a young student of life. I'll get back to you very soon!

Jul 7 2012:
I just started to clumsily putting together in short some of my thoughts. Please let me know if I'm doing OK. Please see my post about the nature of our perceptions below.

I praise W. Heisenberg as the most profound philosopher of our time. I refer to his concept - every observer unavoidably effects what he observes. The way we may see quarks as some imaginable particles or waves is up to our choice based on our tasks, but this would never be a perfect presentation of any objective conditions of the world. About quantum theory and electricity - I think that the most intuitive of us whether these individuals are scientists, or researchers, or philosophers, or engineers, or medical doctors have to make a step or two beyond the thick walls of their institutions and open this inspirational collaboration..... I'm positive that beside grand questions people would be able to come up with grand answers that would shake the very recycling mentality that is "leading" us through millennia. I dream to participate in this kind of collaboration.

Jul 7 2012:
I understand that you dream to participate in this 'higher something', yet I do not believe in its existence.

Actually you partly contributed in my believe in considering Heisenberg.

As you, by any means, will ever be an observer, the presentation of any 'higher something' to your mind renders it imperfect at that very moment. Not even considereing all other imperfections caused by all the other observers who came up with this 'higher something'.

Personally I found 'peace' on my mind in staying 'absurd' on this and this was triggered by Douglas Adams infinite answer to the meaning of life, quote: 42

So be aware, as you may not 'getting' what was of high importance to you if it was answered correctly ... And it may also be important of how and what to ask...

Jul 7 2012:
So you did it again! :o) And as more you like my comments, in which I am trying to 'dismantle' your idea, as more I begin to like you, which is a natural process, yet not helpful in maintaining objectivity in my personal subjectivity ... :o) So stop boosting my TED score which has to be 'earned' the hard way... :o)

By the way, I still don't understand electricity any better than before I started to descuss with you. Are you certain your idea is going to work?

Jul 7 2012:
Based on my own experience I'd like to say this firmly - many children who are confused in understanding math are not at all stupid. They often have much deeper intuition than those who "catch" the math game quickly, because that conventional "logic" offered by math lays on the surface of our deceiving sight observation. For many it is easy to play on a surface.

Because we do not have any other better programs yet, I would explain to the kids that what we have to offer to them today is unfortunately far not perfect, but these methods would be very helpful to socialize in our society until something new and greater will be invented. As a very young student I so wanted to hear some encouragement! I saw many logical mistakes in math, but was scared to say a word, perhaps just like many very young, still intuitive kids.

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